21 2 
EXPLORING FOR CASTILLOA RUBBER 
him quiet until the screams ceased. Then they whispered that it was 
death to speak aloud and returned to their sleeping places. The next 
morning they explained that the screams came from the spirit of a 
man who was murdered and buried with money on him, and if any 
one had spoken the spirit would have at once attacked and killed the 
speaker. No whit impressed, the Pioneer searched the river bank, and 
finally found a huge and ancient sloth, which he promptly killed. And 
thus was the uneasy spirit laid, for the cries ceased from that time. 
The rubber trees up there, so he said, were from two to three feet 
in diameter, and most abundant bleeders. They always cut them down 
to secure the rubber, as they get more that way and know that if they 
spared them the next crew of gatherers would destroy them. He said 
that on the land we had come to examine, the rubber gatherers had 
been in the habit of cutting the trees down, but that two years before 
tlie practice had been stopped, and a premium of twenty-five dollars 
paid to any one who informed of such destruction. As the whole tract, 
some five hundred thousand acres, was private property, and wild, and 
as most of the Indians lived on the other side of the mountains, the 
rubber was quite plentiful, and with a very little system, the crop could 
be greatly augmented. 
The next day was undertaken in good earnest the work of getting 
our stores and ourselves safely ashore. And no light task we found 
it. The surf was tremendous and it was impossible, even with the skill- 
ful management, to get to land without being drenched, the men being 
landed in the ship's boat, the stores coming ashore in a dugout. 
While the goods were being landed, the Scout and the Prospector 
stripped and took a bath. Later they shuddered when they remembered 
it, for the sharks that haunt that shore, coming far into the shallow 
water, are big and voracious. In the meantime 1 was looking at the 
forest. Much to my delight I found Castilloa trees growing within one 
hundred feet of the shore. Small ones to be sure, but thrifty. One. 
about three inches in diameter, had been tapped, and from the cuts I 
stripped some good strong rubber. 
